Yesterday Little Bug was … restless? grumpy? gassy? always hungry? I really didn’t know what the problem was to tell you the truth. She would fall asleep and then 10 or 15 minutes later would be up and frustrated at the world, it seemed.

Late afternoon I remembered a DVD a blogger friend had ordered for me off Amazon and had shipped to my house. When I received it, I put it with all our other DVDs and didn’t think about it until yesterday when Little Bug was “out of sorts”.

The DVD is called The Happiest Baby on the Block (Harvey Karp, M.D.). The outside cover claims you can watch the DVD and learn the secrets of the world’s best baby calmer by discovering the amazing Calming Reflex that supposedly every baby is born with. It’s a baby’s natural crying “off-switch”!

I thought, Why not put it in and see what he has to say? I mean, I am in survival mode, so at this point, I’ll try anything!

I turned on the DVD and began watching. Dr. Karp started by saying that the first three months of an infant’s life are the “Fourth Trimester”. Humans are born extremely immature, compared to all other creatures born on this earth. For example, a horse delivers her baby and that very same day the baby is up running around! Not so with humans! Humans are born helpless.

Dr. Karp says babies that are less than 3 months old need to feel like they are still in the womb, and when they do feel that way, they are most happy.

He went on to tell of his 5 S’s, which are 5 simple steps that can help all babies be happy and sleep better too!

Swaddle

Side/Stomach Position

Shushing

Swinging

Sucking

I’m not going to go into every S in detail. However, after watching what Dr. Karp did to stop babies from crying (it really was like flipping a switch!) and to help sooth them so they will sleep peacefully, I was ready to give it a try on Little Bug!

I swaddled her like Dr. Karp showed on the DVD, held her in the Side Position to calm/soothe her and then put the Soothing Sounds CD on (mimics sounds from the womb) and Little Bug slept peacefully for the first time that day!

A-MA-ZING!

The DVD cover also claimed that if you swaddle baby all night and play the Soothing Sounds CD, you can get an extra 1-2 hours of sleep. Like I said, we are in “survival mode” around here so we were willing to try ANYTHING for an extra hour or two of sleep!

First, we had to figure out a way for the DVD to play in our bedroom. (We don’t have a TV or DVD player in our bedroom and we did not feel comfortable with Little Bug sleeping in the Living Room by herself).

My technology savvy husband hooked Little Bug up using some speakers and the laptop and here she is swaddled and snoozing away to the sound of the womb right by our bed around midnight last night!

Little Bug had a feeding at 11:30pm. We put her to bed around midnight and she did not wake up until … drumroll … 4 AM!!!

And she continues to snooze, peacefully. Here she is sleeping away to the sound of the womb while swaddled up like a burrito!

Day 2 of trying this out begins … :)

Here’s the link: The Happiest Baby

Thank you, April, for sending me this DVD!

- Elaine